


Ain't Nobody Ever Gonna Care About You 'Cept Me

by Ashlahrs



Series: Dixons and Dogtags [1]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Brothers, F/M, Gen, Other, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-28
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-27 08:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 16,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2686232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashlahrs/pseuds/Ashlahrs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl and Merle have left their home in the North Georgia mountains and have yet to run into Shane and the group. This is what happened between their leaving and their joining the Atlanta group. Rated T for language, violence, racism from Merle, and possible rape depending on Merle's evolution. None of the racist language in Merle's vocabulary represents my views in any way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Following the fresh tracks of a deer, the Dixon brothers were silent as to not be detected. It was unusual for Merle to be silent for so long in any other case because he was usually trying to goad Daryl into a competition of some sort. However, they hadn't eaten any meat in a long time and were both feeling the hunger. There was hardly ever a dull moment in the sense of Merle not being himself, so despite the fact the lack of noise meant there was no distracting from the occasional rumbling of their stomachs, Daryl found himself thoroughly enjoying their tracking as they crouched around and through another set of the Georgian woods.

 

They'd made it down from the mountains about two moths prior and were only now to a point where they could see their sad excuse of a home. It was never really a home to either of them growing up, so now home was with each other. That's how it'd always been in the end, but Daryl never saw it that way. Besides, who didn't like being out in the woods all of the time? “Merle,” Daryl suddenly whispered, making the elder Dixon stop and look at the younger expectantly. Daryl held up his crossbow to his eye and then gestured with it to indicate to his brother that he was supposed to look that way.

 

Across the bank of a small creek, there was not only the one deer that they'd been following but two more as well, two bucks and a doe in total. Any good hunter knows that you don't want to kill the females because of breeding, so the two bucks were going to have to be their prize. It was definitely easier to kill, butcher, move, and guard two anyway. Each brother could take one and take care of it once they set up camp. The brothers always had a competition about things like butchering deer anyway, so this would be nothing new to either of them. Merle grabbed the steel handgun from his belt and pointed it at the one on the right, and Daryl nodded while refocusing his aim to the one on the left. Not wanting to alert one of them before the others to scare them, Daryl held up three fingers and silently and slowly counted down to zero. He never got to one let alone zero.

 

Merle, on two, fired off about four shots into the general vicinity of the deer that was on the _left_ before Daryl even knew what was happening. “ Fuck, Merle!” Daryl shouted as he fired off a bolt into the hindquarters of the left deer to slow it down, if it wasn't already on its way to death. He then tossed his crossbow over his shoulder up onto his back and took off running after the deer to catch up with the deer. He splashed through the creek and probably helped alert everything within a two mile radius to the location of the Dixon brothers and the deer; Merle did it initially and Daryl just wasn't helping.

 

The trail of blood and tracks only went for about a third of a mile before the younger redneck stumbled onto the collapsed animal.  _At least we got somethin'_ , Daryl thought to himself as he knelt down in front of the deer and reached for his crossbow again. He wasted only mere seconds to load his crossbow up with a bolt before there was a bolt protruding from the skull of the deer, putting it out of its misery. Briefly he thought about dragging the dead buck back to where he left his brother but thought better of it and would rather have Merle come to him. He knew his brother would call him a pussy for it, but on the flip side he knew Merle would call him a goddamn idiot, if he was feeling nice, to drag it all the way there. Once his bolts were retrieved from the carcass, Daryl made his way back to his brother who was still by the creek.

 

  
“'Bout time you came back!” Merle's raspy and irritated voice called out to him. “The hell're them deetr you scared away?”

 

“I ain't the one who scared 'em away And got us a buck. Left ' im back there a little ways.” His tone was void of all inflexion at this point in his life. Daryl knew Merle's game by now and was just about resigned to it. It was so much simpler if he just let Merle keep braying like a jackass and go along with it. His brother wasn't going to change his ways any time soon, and Daryl knew that so better to get used to it and respond and prepare accordingly. 

 

Merle raised his eyebrows at his statement, though, and that left Daryl unsure of which part of his statement has confused his brother before Merle informed him exactly what had. “Thought'chu were suppose'ta be smarter'n that, Darylina! Leavin' a big ol' buck out for the walkers!”

 

Daryl realized as soon as Merle had said it that he'd fucked up. He'd known that Merle would say he did, but this was the first time in years Merle had an actual reason to say it. Huffing a little at the sad thought that he'd been so stupid, Daryl turned and started to run back towards the deer, waving after him to get Merle to follow. Merle was lazy and would usually let Daryl go ahead and do the hard work when it came to stuff like this, but now that it came to proving that Daryl did in fact do something stupid, Merle would expend all effort in order to make fun of Daryl and degrade him about it; Daryl knew he'd have this held over his head for years to come.

 

The forest was a little unpredictable because Daryl hadn't been expecting to run through it again, so there were a few fallen tree limbs that he didn't remember being there originally. He still knew where he was going, but Merle's shouts of, “Where the hell are you takin' me?!” showed him that Merle lacked that same confidence. What didn't help the confidence was the fact that  there was a sudden thud behind him followed by Merle shouting an obscenity that Daryl didn't care to listen to. All he did was stop, turn back around, and go help his brother up off the forest floor. His ankle was probably sprained, so now Daryl knew he'd be dealing with that the entire time as well as Merle's already shitty attitude.

 

“Y'alright?”

 

“Do I look alright?! See what'chu do when you fuck up, little brother? Now you got my ass injured. You gon' pay for this, hope you know that.”

 

“Let's just get us the damned deer, okay, bro?”

 

After a few more minutes of walking, as they weren't running anymore, Merle was finally sitting down in the clearing where the deer had been taken out as they arrived. Unfortunately, Merle was right again as they arrived only to see a walker eating the face of the buck. An eye was completely missing and the other one was gouged, and Daryl didn't even want to look at the state of the rest of the face. Merle withdrew his gun again just as Daryl readied the crossbow and fired the same time his brother did. The bolt went into the trunk of a nearby tree as the unexpected shot made Daryl jump while the bullet hit the walker square between the eyes. As it fell backwards with an almost graceful fall and thud, Daryl angrily turned towards Merle. “The hell was that all about?! You can't keep firin' that thing off everywhere! You're gonna let---”  
  
“That's never what any'a yer little girlfriends ever said!” he cut in with a smirk; however, Daryl just continued on. For once he wasn't going to deal with Merle's shit because this wasn't his fault. Well, it kind of was, but it wasn't enough for Merle to just say it once.

 

“You're gonna attract goddamn walkers!”  
  


“I wouldn't'a had to fire it if you hadn't left it!”  
  


“If you'd'a waited for my goddamn count then I wouldn't'a had to chase it!”

 

“Fuck you! Just accept the fact you fucked up! I'm better'an you so I'd know if it was me! Better learn your place again, Darylina, 'nd get off'a your goddamn high horse!”

 

However, an angry Merle, while pretty normal, was not something that Daryl  wanted to deal with. He knew he'd fucked up, but he also knew that Merle had caused him to. Merle was right when he said that he was better than Daryl. Years of abuse, all kinds, left Daryl susceptible to thoughts like that. Of course Merle was better. He was older, he got to get away from home and around what Daryl couldn't, and Daryl ws just worse at everything compared to his brother. Merle got the girls, even if he had to pay for them or stile them from Daryl, and Merle was better with people, too, despite the kind of asshole he was. Giving a resigned sigh, Daryl took out his hunting knife and retrieved his bolt from the tree. He then looked from the deer to Merle. “Walker's got his face all tore up... What do we wanna do with it?”

 

“We gon' eat it! The fuck else would we do with it?” Merle asked incredulous. His tone conveyed that he thought Daryl was currently dumber than the walker that they'd just killed.

 

“What if it's infected?”

“We ain't gonna eat the face!” Merle continued in the same tone. “Cut around it!”

 

_Gonna be one long apocalypse,_ Daryl thought with a sigh as he gave a nod and started to break down the deer.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I also promise that I will try to start adding more Merle perspective into the story. I know I'm favouring Daryl's side and will try to work on it. I also apologize for Merle's use of a racial slur (one of many to come I'm sure) and want to say again that this isn't my view at all. I can't even say the word casually like everyone else tends to, makes me few gross >.

BANG!

A gunshot rang out in the middle of the clearing, shattering what Daryl assumed was silence in the early Georgia morning. The younger Dixon had been sleeping, leaning back against a tree by their self-made fire pit where they'd roasted some of their deer the night before. They'd eaten and drank like redneck kinds, so the both of them fallen asleep as a happy man. Daryl hadn't gotten too drunk all things considered. Unlike Merle, when Daryl drank he didn't do it in order to get blackout drunk. Hell, he didn't even do it to get drunk. All Daryl wanted to do was get a buzz. With that being the case, Merle passed out much quicker than the younger brother, but he woke up earlier as well. And then he fired off his gun. Daryl didn't appreciate that.

Daryl literally jumped to his feet with crossbow now in hand, firmly ready to attack the threat. Instead he was greeted with a cloud of feathers slowly falling to the ground about fifteen feet away from his brother. Merle was laughing outright at Daryl's reaction to the point where he looked like he was going to fall to his side, then he called him a fruit for being so scared, and then he laid back down and passed the fuck out all over again. Of course he could do that and not have it be a big deal. Daryl normally would leave it be and go back to bed himself, but he had not been in the mood to be awoken in such a manner from his first real sleep in months, both before and after the apocalypse started. He stomped over to Merle and aimed a hard kick at his thigh to wake him. “Merle!”

The other Dixon responded with a groan of protest that sent a retaliation punch to Daryl's shin without so much as an eye twitching, let alone opening. When Daryl tried again, Merle decided that he wouldn't be getting any more sleep. Merle looked up with that smug grin he had. It was one that Daryl despised even if it did add a sense of normality in these times of chaos. It was familiar... but Daryl still wanted to punch him in the face for it. “You want somethin', little brother?” he asked, completely feigning innocence. Maybe he really did believe he was innocent and hadn't done anything wrong. Merle was funny like that sometimes. Okay, all the time. He was right in his own mind. Daryl knew that. It made it easier to like him. “What'chu doin' wakin' Ol' Merle from his sleep?”

“Why the fuck are you firin' a gun for? Tol'ju yesterday you're gonna rain walkers down on us if you keep firin' that thing off!”

“Damn little Tweety bird didn't shut the help up! Had to get it to quiet down if I wanted to go back to bed, now didn't I?”

“Could'a rolled over.”

“Is Darylina mad she didn't get her beauty sleep? Or is she mad that Ol' Merle killed a pretty little bird?” Daryl's expression was still pissed off but his brows furrowed in brief frustration that his gender was once more called into question. “C'mon now! Killin' the only thing that proves you still got a pair'a balls!”

That was the point Daryl knew he should walk away. He was done being made fun of for the moment. He backed off from Merle, who smirked and then closed his eyes yet again, and really looked around to inspect the morning. There was a layer of grey clouds coating the entire sky leaving no room for the sun. There hadn't been any disturbances to their camp in the middle of the night except for a fox that had curled up right next to one of Merle's overturned beer bottles some time during the night. 

Well that would be a nice surprise for Merle when he decided to fully regain consciousness. Daryl couldn't be bothered to go kill it and save it either. They didn't need it because they had enough deer to last for a week if they were careful, four days if they weren't. The biggest worry was that Daryl couldn't tell what time it was. If he couldn't see the sun he had no way to tell what time of the day it was, which meant he didn't know if they should wait around or go get moving before walkers were really active. Even before the apocalypse, the Dixons never bothered to wear watches. They used the sky and the sun to tell time. Some people wore watches, some people could read Roman numerals, Dixons had the Sun.

“Should probably be getting' our shit together,” he said to himself, crossing over to Merle again and kicking him away to scare away the fox. They needed to find the nearest town and go try to siphon more gas for his truck and Merle's motorcycle. They would be running on fumes soon if they weren't already. Neither Dixon would be fond of leaving their vehicles behind. It would be a pain in the ass to haul all of their things on their backs. And both of them knew that if that's what it came down to that Daryl would end up with the heavier load to carry. 

Merle was really attached to his motorcycle. It wasn't necessarily because he'd won it from, to quote Merle, “a nigger in a bar fight.” Daryl quite honestly didn't know, nor did he want to, what the specifics of that fight were. He knew that Merle liked to fight dirty, especially against the non-white opponents. The best use for the bike, though, was that it held the drugs Merle still did. Obviously, the goddamn apocalypse was the one place to be shooting up heroin or whatever the fuck Merle did. He always somehow managed to do it when Daryl wasn't around and always put it away before he returned. Merle didn't want his little brother to steal his supply, now did he?

“Need'a load up on alcohol anyway,” he said as he sat up with a groan. Merle looked over to the sighing Daryl. Of course all Merle wanted was to get booze. “Maybe if we're lucky we'll run into a pair'a tits that ain't gonna be tryin' to kill us.” He laughed to himself like he'd come up with the greatest idea in the world. Daryl, however, who was finishing up wrapping the deer, didn't let him get away with it and said, 

“Why? Walkers ain't gonna mind the clap. Real pair'a tits would.”

Daryl knew he'd been successful when all Merle did was decrease his laugh into a snicker and say, “Screw you, little brother.”


	3. Chapter 3

The vehicles had stopped two miles outside of the town the Dixons had been heading towards. Heavy thoughts of rain and the possibility that someone would come along and try to steal them worried the mind of Daryl. All Merle had to say was, “C'mon now... Don't want anyone touchin' my goddamn bike.”

They loaded up the motorcycle into the back of the grey pickup truck before each of them grabbed an empty red gas can and started off on the freeway towards the town once more. Merle was right in the lead as always while Daryl was his usual three or four steps behind. Merle whistled various southern tunes to himself whereas Daryl preferred the company and quiet of his own thoughts. The silence, not counting Merle's whistling, was broken when they heard the growls and strangled groans of the walkers echoing around them. They didn't sound great in number, but where there were a few there were always more waiting. 

Daryl dropped his gas can and immediately pulled his crossbow from his shoulder and dropped to a knee. Merle, forever a supporter of his second amendment rights, grabbed one of the few handguns that were on his person. At first it was still calm, but then the Dixons saw a few, and only a few, emerging from both sides of the interstate. “Looks like an ambush,” Merle mused as he fired off three rounds into two zombies. Daryl watched them fall to the ground while he loaded a bolt. He fired it off immediately right between the eyes of a single walker, a little girl, before he started to load his crossbow again and went back-to-back with Merle to be sure that they covered all their sides. “Better figure out that yer gonna have'ta use that gun real quick, little brother.”

Of course Merle was right. It would be stupid of him to use all his bolts and then run into the walkers with his buck knife just to retrieve said bolts. It was way too much risk for not a lot of reward. He could just go grab them after the walkers were all dead. Daryl still fired off another bolt, into the eye socket this time, and sighed as he thought, _Dumb dead bastard._ Merle was one again not helping the situation in the long term. Sure, bodies on his side were falling to the ground, but the sound of a repeated series of gunshots was drawing walkers, a lot of them, closer.

Daryl was out of bolts, and Merle was onto his second gun by the time they bothered to stop and really notice how outnumbered they were. “Good job, Darylina. Didn't go runnin' when I said we should. Look'it us now.”

“Didn't say shit!” Daryl shouted back with venom. “You got your knife, so c'mon!” The only reason he'd been defiant with Merle was because their lives were still very much in danger. He was out of bolts, and Merle finally realized he should probably conserve ammo for once they actually got to the town. Those few walkers, though, had been turned into dozens. If it was just Merle giving Daryl shit, like usual, then there wouldn't have been as much of a problem nor would there have been a confrontation. Merle wasn't seeing it as defiance, only as a challenge. 

“Bet'chu I can get more'a your bolts than you can, Darylina!” Merle goaded as he reached to his side and grabbed his own knife. It was more akin to a machete rather than an actual knife like Daryl's, but Daryl still thought it was more of a knife than anything else. It was often a source of laughter for the older Dixon that he had a “bigger knife” than his brother. “Wipe 'em out, grab them cans, and we gone.”

They once again took up half of the small mob each. Both were convinced that they could handle two dozen walkers between them, but the underlying worry was that they couldn't just make a run for it back to the truck, step on the gas, and leave. They had no escape unless they fought their way out, and despite their self-confidence with their survival skills, there was only so much that could be done when they were as outnumbered as they were.

Merle's fighting style was more erratic. He went for everything that was moving and was always on the offensive, but he was very sloppy about it; if he was more precise he would have easily killed off more walkers than he did. The walkers he attacked had multiple wounds to their torsos before Merle landed the fatal injury to somewhere in the brain. Daryl on the other hand was a cobra: deadly, poised to strike, precise, and waiting for the opportune moment before giving a single deadly strike. He was on the defensive and knew that playing it safe and waiting for the right time was the best strategy. 

His strategy was working more more effectively than Merle's. Merle was wasting more energy and took way more blows to take a walker down. It didn't phase the elder Dixon, though, as he continued to do his part. He did miss one, though, and it lunged on him. Merle raised his leg and tried to kick it back, but he lost his balance and ended up on his back with a walker on top of him. It was trying to bite at his face. Merle had one hand below the jaw, holding him up, while his other hand was either reaching for the knife that had gone flying back or was trying to contain the walker's hands as to not get scratched.

“Merle!” Daryl shouted as he looked away from the last two he had left. He saw Merle struggling and started to run over to him when a walker grabbed the back of his sleeveless shirt. The extra force wasn't expected and took Daryl to the ground. The walker's plans were cut short, however, because Daryl did not have time for this shit. He aimed a hard kick to the face of the female walker that was holding him and quickly scrambled to his feet. He had to get to Merle, who was still struggling and losing the battle very, very quickly. As he ran, he leaned down and grabbed his brother's knife that had been lost to the elder Dixon and ran up behind the walker, plunging the blade deep into its skull and twisting hard. It stopped struggling, but Daryl wanted to be sure it was dead and needed to make sure it knew what happened when you fucked with his brother. Using the handle of the knife, he yanked the walker off of Merle and threw it to the floor before planting a hard stomp right onto the undead face. The concrete of the freeway was stained in dark blotches of blood now.

When Daryl was done, he wiped the knife on his pants and walked over to where Merle still lied on the ground. Daryl silently reached a hand down and pulled him up before passing him back his knife. Merle nodded. And Daryl knew that it was a thank you despite the fact no words were uttered. With only a few walkers left, Daryl grabbed his handgun and fired off four quick shots that dropped them all to the ground. Once they were all dead, Daryl jogged around and grabbed all his bolts from the corpses' corpses. Merle found all his weaponry and still looked a little shaken. While he still recovered quickly, Daryl looked over at him and noticed the brief fear and was what probably gratefulness at the fact he was still alive. Daryl grabbed his crossbow over his shoulder again and grabbed his gas can. Merle grabbed the other one and, still without a word being said, they were off once more. They wanted to get the hell out of there.


	4. Chapter 4

They walked for an hour and fought walkers for an additional ten minutes. They wouldn't have had problems with walkers if Merle hadn't shoved Daryl into a car causing the alarm to go off. That was Daryl's fault too. However, they were finally where they needed to be. The town that they were in didn't have it's name visible anywhere, but Daryl couldn't help mentally naming the town Shitsville. Then again, when you were stuck anywhere with Merle and nobody else, everything could be dubbed that. Somehow there was still nowhere else that Daryl would rather be. All he'd ever known was his brother or no one, so the fact he and Merle were stuck together for the rest of their lives was comforting. Merle on the other hand didn't have quite the same content feeling with their situation. He wouldn't mind being around Daryl for the rest of his life either, but what he really wanted was a sexy woman who he could have sex with whenever he felt like, for free, without having to worry about protection. Meanwhile Daryl just wanted a real bed for a night.

The town looked like something you would expect to see out of a post-apocalyptic TV drama. Merle stood atop a big white pickup truck and looked around. There were about two one-story motels that he could see that were off towards the center of town. There was a diner with neon signs still hanging in the windows that looked like it hadn't properly been used since the nineteen eighties. Windows were busted out with shattered glass both inside and out, and there was no actual floor to be seen thanks to all the corpses, both human and walker, that were there. It was retro with the typical appearance at its heart and soul, though, and Merle scoffed at it before turning his gaze elsewhere. Homes in the area looked like they could have been nice, almost homely, a few years ago but were now reduced to the zombie survival shelters they currently were. The infrastructure was almost all that remained as their windows and interior were ripped out and broken. It looked like there had been many riots in the area. Merle gave out a low whistle and waved Daryl on. He found a small 76 gas station. Leading the two, Merle had his knife raised while Daryl had his crossbow ready. The plan?

"You go in, I'll go around."

Daryl nodded and went inside the convenience store that was part of the gas station. It was only a small store with no real places to hide. It was also deathly quiet. As he went through the asiles, he made sure to remember where the good shit was for the walk back. He was just about to grab a bag of chips when he heard a noise. Whipping around, Daryl's eyes narrowed and he once more stalked the shelves. There was nobody there. Behind the counter was empty too except for the person who had been working behind the register; they'd blown their brain out. That meant there was only one place left: the bathroom. He stood right outside the door as he made sure he was armed and ready. Raising his crossbow, Daryl kicked in the door and charged in.

Around the back of the convenience store, Merle had a revolver at the ready while he crept along the store. He ducked under windows and made his way to the other side of it to check the other gas pumps. There were at least a dozen cards parked there, all crashed into each other and in their own way, but he noticed there was one car that was a different kind of dirty. It wasn't an abandoned kind of dirty but a very well used kind of dirty. It had mud splashed all over the grill and the tires, all of it fresh, and when he walked over and put his hand to the hood of the car it was warm. Son of a bitch! He immediately slunk down and got into a really low squat so he couldn't be seen very easily. Now in his crouch, he started to move towards the back door and held his breath as soon as he got to it. Merle wasn't normally one to be cautious, but he knew one mistake could get his little brother killed. Either way, the assholes in there were going to die whether Daryl was live and well or not. He cocked his gun and slowly opened the door handle only to hear someone shout, "Toss your gun in and then open the fucking door!"

Shit...He threw the gun in, a lot harder than he probably should have, and heard it go off as it hit something. "Good, now open the fucking door or your brother gets it!" Merle walked in with his hands innocently, although that was probably the first time that word applied to him, and kept his expression neutral as he stepped into the store and saw three men. Two of them were big burly men who were about six foot two and three hundred pounds. Merle wasn't that all of a man, only at a little less than six feet, but he felt intimidated. Well, okay, he didn't feel intimidated, but rather he felt like he really had to watch himself for once if he didn't want to get him and/or Daryl killed. The last man was a black man who was just as tall as the other two men but was a lot skinnier, making him look even taller than he really was. "Give us your weapons," one of the two brick walls of men ordered.

"Tell ya what," Merle started, giving that cocky grin he had in order to portray confidence he wasn't quite sure he had in this situation, "you let my little brother go, and I'll let ya walk away with most'a your teeth." He raised his eyebrows and held out his hands as if giving a show and he'd just performed a great trick. He must have done something along those lines, too, because all three men started laughing. One of them actually needed to lean up against the shelves, but as soon as he put all of his weight on it the shelf tipped over and took him with it. "Go!"

Daryl grabbed one of the arms that was wrapped around his neck and slammed his head back against the man's head that was holding him. He didn't register the pain in his head from the contact and instead focused on biting the arm hard enough to taste blood and kicking the gun away when it was dropped. Taking a single moment for a deep breath, as his had been restricted for so long, Merle seized the opportunity to grab the gun. "I got the nigger, you get the rest," he said as he threw Daryl the machete-type knife that was always at his side.

The younger Dixon held the knife in his hand ready to stab and lunged atop the man that had been taken out by the shelves. The knife was plunged right into the back of his head and, just as with the walker, twisted until he was sure the son of a bitch was dead. The next thing Daryl knew was that there was a huge shadow cast over him. Daryl quickly pulled the knife out of the skull and turned to slash, watching the blood spill from the leg that was sliced. The formerly blue jeans now had a growing red patch on them that started to spread over the entire leg. "You son of a bitch! You fucking stabbed me!" the aggressor shouted as he bent down to clutch his leg.

"Not yet..." Daryl said, kneeling down as he spit out blood from his mouth from when he bit the arm. The man looked at him confused, but just as his eyes widened in realization, Daryl lunged again like an animal and watched the stranger's pupils dilate as the lights went out and the knife went through the ear and into the brain. "Now I have." With that done, Daryl looked over to see Merle standing over the black man, who was curled up on the floor and bruised and bloodied and beaten, holding a gun to the back of his head.

"Looks like you should'a gone back to where you came from," Merle laughed as a shot went off and the black man, who was formerly curled up as if anticipating another assault, relaxed and went limp. "Stupid nigger, son of a bitch." Merle then spit onto the corpse and laughed again while Daryl shook his head, wiping blood from his mouth. "Let's get that damn gas and get the hell outta here. We can steal their truck to get back to the road." Merle tasked himself with gathering all the weaponry and booze in the entire place, scavenging and stripping what he could off of their three victims. Daryl went out and started to get the gas.

While Merle was whistling Dixie, Daryl couldn't bring himself to look back at the three men they'd killed. Sure, it'd been in self-defense, but that didn't mean he felt any better about it. He liked to think that he was better than his brother as far as morals went, but the fact he turned into such an animal in there made him realize that he was no better than Merle. Maybe he was even worse because he tried to hide it... He merely sighed as he started to siphon the gas. There was nothing he could do about it now except add them to the toll count that seemed to be going up more and more each day. They'd definitely deserved it, but he couldn't help but feel a little bit guilty at least for how Merle was.

The quiet of the landscape crushed Daryl the longer he stood out there. The only sound around him was that of Merle's whistling, and frankly that was the last thing he could ever want to listen to in that moment. It was deafening, strangling. To make it go away, something had to give. There had to be something beyond the perpetual silence that was left in the world. There was only Merle as the noise now; anything else was a threat and would be and should be eliminated immediately. Daryl broke the silence to himself with only the whispered word of, "Shit," before he felt the sudden ability to breathe again as the silence was shattered by that one word. He was breathing normally, and with a sigh he looked back to Merle and almost let a smile cross his face until he looked down at the corpses again. No, he wouldn't smile, not yet.

"Let's get'a goin', Darylina!" Merle said with a grin as he tossed a bag over his shoulder and grabbed a gas can from his little brother.

"Should go look in on the diner or the houses 'n' see if shit's still in 'em," Daryl said quietly as his own little addition to the conversation.

"The fuck would we need that shit for?"

"Stock up for winter when we can't hunt," was all Daryl replied, walking off in the direction of the diner and the homes. He didn't look back at the gas station, nor at the truck that they would be taking back when they did finally leave. Instead he looked forward, determined, and kept his head down to ignore the world. Merle chuckled a little and then went into outright laughter as he realized Daryl was even more quiet than usual.

"Pussy," he laughed as he jogged over to Daryl, still whistling, and clapped him on the back. Once more the Dixons were off, and they couldn't have been more content with it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please keep in mind that anything awful and bigoted Merle says is Merle and not me!  
> I'm going to try to update this more often now. I'm gonna get back into the swing of things. Love y'all. Thanks to Jade for your urge to continue! <3

There was shattered glass all over Daryl's shoulder blade as he broke in a sliding glass back door to the back of an apartment building. He was to get inside, go through the building, and then go let Merle in at the door. The buzzer didn't work, so this was the next best thing. Daryl had his crossbow at the ready as he swept through the entire apartment that he was in, scanning through and sighing as the smell of death clung to everything. It clung to the furniture, the rooms, the air, to his clothes. It was suffocating, but it was a suffocation that he could breathe through. The human body was adapting to the suffocation of the stench of death. Now they could breathe through it and cut through the cloak of death.

Once the apartment was cleared out, Daryl ran through the halls and found the door that led to the area that Daryl was from. The hall creaked as he jogged down it, and his muscles were all incredibly tense with the weight of all the supplies he was carrying. The Dixons had yet to double back to the truck, and Daryl was really getting weighted down. Merle on the other hand didn't carry much and actually had both hands free when Daryl buzzed him in at the door and let him in. It was tiresome to be constantly moving, but Daryl knew that Merle would let him sleep in the truck if he didn't feel like riding his motorcycle. There was a high chance of rain that they both noticed, so both Dixons knew that they didn't want to be caught out in the rain; a common cold could kill you nowadays.

"Wanna start clearin' it out?" Daryl asked. He was completely willing to go through the process of clearing out an entire floor then moving up and repeating the process for three more floors. It was easier to do all the scouring now than running out of supplies and trying to replenish their stock.

"Let's get it goin'," Merle nodded. The older Dixon was eager to do some easy work after the fight that they'd gotten themselves into earlier. He was no stranger to fighting, but seeing Daryl in a situation like that truly shook him up. It was obvious by the ways he kept looking at Daryl out of the corners of his eyes and made sure that his little brother was okay. He couldn't let Daryl know that he was worried about him, though, so he was still making his little brother the pack mule while he was being the slave driver.

The brothers cleared out the entire first floor with very few problems. There were sixteen apartments down the long hallway with Merle taking one side and Daryl taking the other; they were to use some of their bird calls, like they used for hunting, if they got into trouble or saw something that the other one needed to see immediately. The first floor contained a total of forty-seven walkers, sixteen corpses, and three animal carcasses which actually smelled worse than the rest of the building's contents. From the sixteen rooms, they scavenged two backpacks filled with canned food and older bottles of water and Gatorade that were supposed to have expired months ago. They might have been rednecks, but they had no idea how the hell water expired.

Then came the time to go move on to the second floor. "You wanna go up the fire escape?" Daryl asked. They didn't have to go up or continue on. Frankly he was carrying so much that he'd be happy leaving.

Merle was about to answer when he was quickly shushed by the sound of loud stomping above their heads. Now, most people would have either run out and not gone upstairs or gone upstairs to see what that noise was. Daryl was the latter, but Merle... Merle wasn't most people. "Watch this, little brother," he said as his right hand went to a holster. He withdrew a black desert eagle and pointed it up to the ceiling. Getting a grin on his face, Merle fired off ten shots right up through the ceiling in the same general vicinity of the pounding they'd heard. Not ten seconds after the last shot was fired there was a loud shout of, "Oh shit!" followed by an even louder thud than the first one. Merle grinned nd said, "Looks like I got 'im." It looked like they were going up after all.

They spent ten minutes looking to find the fire escape that ended up being outside by the door Daryl had originally broken into. Daryl jumped up with the three backpacks of supplies on his back and knew that there was no way he'd be able to move the way he needed to be able to with the crossbow, the guns, and his bags. "Meet you up there," he told Merle as he jogged back into the hallway of apartments and picked one of the rooms that was free of all corpses. It looked almost livable if you took the fact there was no running water out of the equation. The backpacks were left in the bathtub with the shower curtain closed over it. He would come back for them later, but fuck carrying them up the fire escape.

He met Merle at the entrance to the second floor and was immediately tense. Merle looked smug with himself, as he usually did, and was shouting, "Come out, come out wherever y'are! Hidin' won't help none!" as he looked through one room while Daryl looked in the one across the hall. The first rooms were clear. The second set of rooms had a couple of walkers. Daryl's was clean but Merle had issues. He turned a corner into the bedroom of the apartment and was face to face with a walker. The thing lunged at him and snarled right in his face. Merle didn't hesitate to drive his knife right through the eyeball into the brain twice, moving and twisting until the creature fell dead at his feet. The other one came on the way out, but Merle simply raised his gun and fired a single shot through the head as he walked out.

The third room, however, proved to be most interesting. Merle's was empty, but Daryl shouted out for him, so he thought his little brother found something interesting. And found something interesting he did. Merle went into the apartment to see Daryl standing offensively with his crossbow trained towards the corner of the room. Merle walked up behind him to see that in the corner there were two people cowering. The man was slenderly built with shaggy blonde hair and a two bullet wounds, one in his foot and one in his calf. The other was a woman who looked of Italian or Hispanic descent with long black hair and a very tiny frame. It was obvious they weren't related, but they were definitely traveling together. "What do you wanna do with 'em?" Daryl asked.

Merle looked at them. They could be useful if they needed live bait to get away from somewhere, but they could also just be useful for supplies if they were killed right in that moment. "What're your names?" he decided to ask. He could see how scared they really were in their responses, see what kind of a threat they were.

"G-G-G-Gail..." the female replied quietly. She was quivering and basically letting her male counterpart know he was on his own as she kept trying to shrink back away from the intimidating rednecks further and further into the corner.

The male was a bit more articulate and clear even though he was bleeding and crying from the pain of being shot twice. He was taking a lot of shallow breaths and was on the verge of hyperventilating until he calmed himself down and swallowed for a moment. Then he looked Merle in the eyes and seriously replied, "Arthur."

"Arthur?!" Merle asked incredulously. "What kinda fruitcake name is that?"

...Well... At least they weren't going to be killed immediately.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters 1-10 were written a long time ago, so I'm going to post at least two per day until I get to writing new material. So it'll be really quick now, but after chapter 10 the updates won't be as fast. I'm sorry for that, I'm just getting back into it. <3  
> And thank you for everyone who's reviewed! On fanfiction.net nobody would ever review, so you make me feel warm and fuzzy.

The Dixons weren't sure how long had passed before they ended up lowering their weapons. Merle was the last to lower, though, but Daryl was more concerned about the quivering female and the fact his brother had shot up someone innocent. The other couple couldn't have been more than twenty-four years old each. Neither brother was a stranger to younger company, especially Merle because he was used to Daryl tagging around with him. Merle never minded when Daryl hung around him. The older brother rather preferred it to the other people he used to hang with. At least with his little brother, Merle could be the biggest asshole alive and there would be no repercussions.

As soon as the weapons were lowered, the two companions cowered next to each other but seemed to relax a little more. That was, of course, until Gail became aware of the fact Arthur was bleeding from his wounds still. "You really didn't need to do that.." she said quietly, eyes averted from Merle as she leaned over Arthur to get one of their bags. Woman's intuition let her know that Merle was the one who shot up through the floor and not Daryl. "We weren't gonna hurt anyone..."

"Nah, but'chu could do somethin' else to me," Merle said with a shit eating grin. Daryl expected it given this was the first time they'd run into a woman in a long time, but the look of pure terror that crossed the girl's face was enough for him to smack his brother on the arm.

"C'mon, let's just go," he mumbled. He didn't want to bother these people anymore. They'd already been shot at, or actually shot in Arthur's case.

"Wait!" Arthur said suddenly. He sat up straight and tried to stand up but was met with only pain."D-don't leave. We can help you guys! In the other room... We have supplies. We can share. We just want to get to Atlanta." He looked like he wanted to say more, but just as he finished speaking the first part of his plea, Gail pressed down hard on his wounds to clean them and to bind them properly.

The formerly khaki coloured pants were stained red around the fringing where the pants were ripped apart. In Gail's hands there was a dark red cloth that couldn't have been white from the start and it was pressed tightly against Arthur's thigh. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." she muttered repeatedly. "Hold that there." She got up and ran right by Daryl and Merle to go out into the hallway and into another room for a moment. She pushed passed Merle like it was nothing. Even Daryl went out of his way to avoid Merle.

Merle stared at her like she was crazy and scoffed when she pushed by him. She put her hand on him and everything, the little thing like that. The nerve of her! Well, Merle was looking downright offended and contaminated. Did she not know who he is? When Gail came back into the room, she gently pushed passed Merle again. Daryl moved out of her way politely, but Merle on the other hand shoved her forwards a lot harder than was necessary. She fell to the ground right by Arthur and looked at Merle like she was hurt on an emotional level by the gesture. Her amber eyes were wide and caught off guard as she pulled herself together and crawled back to Arthur. "I, uhm, I grabbed a needle and thread to stitch you up. So this is gonna hurt again."

The tiny female was meticulous as she knelt over her friend? boyfriend? and continued to work on closing the entry and exit wounds that Merle had given Arthur. She'd picked up knowledge from somewhere because the stitching, while amateur of course, gave the impression that she had picked up a few pointers at some point in her life. The wound was attended to properly, and she even went and grabbed some ibuprofen for Arthur. It made Daryl feel a pang of sadness to know that they had people who would care enough to do something like that. Merle wouldn't let him die, but he wouldn't do that.

During that entire process, the Dixons were checking the rest of the hallway rooms. Merle tried to steal some of the supplies of the other couple, but Daryl told him to put it down because they'd already shot them so taking their stuff wasn't right. He didn't want to leave until the couple was fine. And as soon as they were, Daryl and Merle both started to leave when Arthur hopped up and limped over to them. He put a hand on the shoulder of each brother and told them to wait. Merle turned on a dime and all but threw the younger man off of him, and Daryl immediately grabbed Arthur to make sure he didn't fall over. An apocalypse is hard enough without dealing with Merle.

"Please... Let us come with you! We won't be any trouble! Gail... You saw! She's good with helpin' things and fixing stuff! And she's small, she can go into places that you guys couldn't get into. And... And... and I can drive n make sure that you guys don't gotta risk your necks for no goddamn reason. Make me go do the dangerous shit!"

Merle laughed. "We don't need'ju. Don't want'chu anywhere near us. Lucky we didn't kill y'all with them bullets, son."

"Please! W-we don't have a car! And I'm hurt thanks to you! We won't make it."

"Not my problem is it?" he asked with a shit eating grin on his face. "C'mon, little brother."

As he waved Daryl out, the woman, more like a girl, and Arthur turned to the younger Dixon with pleading gazes. He tried to look away from them, he really did, but the amber and eye blue sets of eyes were staring at him. They were begging. Any inclination he had towards Merle's urges to leave vanished as he looked into the souls of the people who genuinely needed him and wanted his help. Nobody had ever wanted to be helped by him. He leveled his gaze at both of them and just stared for a moment. He was good at reading people, if nothing else when it came to people. They were good people... he could tell. "Merle," he finally said after a moment, "let them come with us. If they can handle it, let's keep 'em... If not, we ditch 'em on the side of the freeway or somethin'."

"You helpin' out every pretty girl we run into now, Darylina?"

"I'm bein' a decent person. More than can be said 'bout you."

"Let'chu mooch off'a me growin' up, little brother. Don't'chu forget that."

A look of pure disbelief crossed Daryl's face. That was a legitimate thing that Merle had said to him. The one who couldn't be bothered to stay at home for more than three weeks even after their father'd died or left, just fucked off in general, and left Daryl at home all alone growing up had said that. "Merle... Saves you from doin' more work." That was the one thing that could possibly appeal to his "human" side.

It took a half hour of Daryl convincing Merle before the elder brother gave in. Then it came time to get the supplies together and manage to find their stuff. Of course, Merle had a single gas can. Daryl had the other gas can, the crossbow on his back, two backpacks that Arthur was carrying before he was injured, and he was what the other man was using to limp on. He could have only had one backpack, but Gail already had her own backpack and he wasn't about to impose that on her. Daryl might not have been a gentleman, or maybe he was and just didn't have enough experience to know what that was like, but he wasn't about to make a girl as tiny as she was carry something so heavy.

Time to go back to the freeway then. "C'mon, Darylina! Take off your fuckin' heels and pick up the pace!" Merle called out as they left the apartment buildings. _Last time I'm a nice guy._


	7. Chapter 7

Helping someone walk was hard enough, but for the younger brother the task was increasingly difficult when there was the added burden of supplies and weaponry. Of course, he was the only one doing anything remotely useful. Daryl was a man of few principles, but one of them was the fact that he wouldn't be making Gail do any extra lifting more than she really had to or wanted to. But even then whenever she wanted to lighten his load, he shook her off with a small grunt of disapproval and a slight reassurance that he was alright. Arthur wasn't in any condition to carry anything because he was just barely able to hang on to the redneck helping him walk. At least he carried his gun, which was just barely less than what could be said for Merle.

The elder Dixon was not only whistling a jaunty tune but was only carrying a single things outside of his weapons. He seemed to not have a care in the world as he he walked down the freeway. By the time they got to the pile of walkers that had been killed earlier, Arthur was dozing in and out of consciousness, resulting in Daryl literally dragging him the rest of the way. The kid was dead weight, but he'd said he wanted a chance to prove himself. Daryl could at least give him that. However, if he would continue to in "prove himself" by nodding off and making him do all the work, Daryl would personally put a boot to his ass and kick him out of the truck.

Merle said he was going to go back to the truck first and sped up his pace, and Daryl knew exactly what for. He didn't mind time without Merle. There was a relief in it when it happened even though it made Daryl feel more alone than anything else ever before. His brother was the only person he'd ever had, and without him around Daryl felt isolated among others. Even now when there were two other people with him, who kind of needed him, he felt isolated. With Merle gone, though, he could relax a little bit and take the break that he so desperately wanted to. Right by the myriad of corpses left by the Dixon brothers hours prior, Daryl dropped down all of his burden except the crossbow and let Arthur sit on the ground slumped against a truck. "Did you guys do this on your own?" Gail asked tentatively after a moment. Her eyes never left the bodies.

"Yeah... On the way in to get gas."

"Was it hard?"

"Nothin' we couldn't handle."

She fell silent after that. The bodies of the dead were emitting an odor that made your eyes water if you got too close. The flesh was decaying, but who knew if that was from their being a walker or if it was from the bodies' second death. The freeway was stained with the dark liquid that Daryl doubted qualified as blood anymore. It didn't run, so whoever predicted the apocalypse got that wrong. There was no blood flooding the streets in tidal waves. The only flooding that would happen would be from the rain, which had started to fall. He could hear the quiet plops of the drops on the ground and the corpses. He was pretty sure there hadn't even been any rioting and looting like everyone thought because they were all too busy running for their lives. There were probably some psychos who'd spent their entire lives preparing for this sitting in their fortress and laughing their ass off at the fact they were right and the entire human race was wrong.

"Think it spread to the rest'a the world?" he asked her after a moment, feeling rather philosophical now that he had someone who wouldn't hit him and call him a pansy for thinking about something other than tits and hunting. "Or think America's the only one that got bent over the table?" Seconds after it left his mouth he realized what he'd said to her and let his eyes immediately go back to the ground. "Didn't mean'ta say it like that." Gail was a girl after all. While he didn't consider himself chivalrous he did have some old-fashioned values instilled in him. Although he had no idea where they came from, living by them seemed to be a good code of conduct.

Gail didn't seem to mind the lapse in judgement nor his choice of words. He wasn't used to talking with some kind of politeness to it. Anyone could imagine how he and Merle talked to each other, so crude and so blunt about everything. There was no kind of censorship between the brothers when it came to their phrasing of things. Instead, she smiled at him. It was a genuine smile like she thought the gesture would be enough to make him feel better and forget all his worries. For that fleeting moment, she was right. He couldn't remember the last time someone besides Merle had smiled at him if it'd ever actually happened before. It was a weird thing to happen, but Daryl was in a happy place. Gail was just so relaxed, so easygoing about everything so far. She really had a head on her shoulders and wouldn't just run off and go get herself killed.

She shuffled over and crouched down by Arthur, checking on him and making sure that he was okay on the ground as he was. Her eyes never left the face of her injured friend, but she still responded to Daryl. "No... I'm sure it's a worldwide phenomenon. If it wasn't, surely the United Nations would have sent help for us, right? I mean people hate America, but they're not going to just let us all die. Someone somewhere had to call another country for help. If they could have offered it, I'm sure they would have."

The argument was fairly straightforward and made sense. He felt kind of stupid for not thinking about it, but there was definitely a reason for that. "You got a lot more faith in the world than I do," he said quietly, sighing and kicking absently at the head of a walker before he heard the familiar sound of a familiar truck. "C'mon... Time to get goin'." He smiled at her, a brief smile that included only the corners of his mouth raising, before he bent down and grabbed all the supplies he could muster. "Leave 'im there for now."

When Merle's truck pulled up beside him, Daryl tossed some of the supplies, the ones that could afford to get wet, into the back before he walked up to the driver's side window. "We got a tarp in there or you gon' go on on your bike?"

"I look like a fuckin' moron, little brother? Storm's comin'. I ain't ridin' out in that shit!"

Daryl rolled his eyes and noted the fact there wasn't an actual answer to his question, but just as he was about to go check himself, Merle handed him a tarp and the cords that would be used to secure it over everything. With the truck put in park and the keys out of the ignition so they didn't waste gas, Merle was once again whistling that goddamn song of his while Daryl undid the back of the pickup and climbed into the back. It was already starting to get slippery, but it wasn't anything he could handle as he began securing the tarp. The hard part was really trying to keep his footing steady while Merle kept rocking the truck. There was already water collecting in the bed, and that would be the hardest part of the entire process: figuring out how to keep their supplies dry and not soaked through. Hopefully the tarp would be able to cover it.

It took fifteen minutes to cover everything completely and then help Gail get Arthur into the back of the truck. Gail sat behind Daryl. Arthur leaned back against the interior behind Merle but he was lying across the entire backseat with his legs across Gail's lap. They were snug with absolutely no breathing room now, but Daryl thought it could be a lot worse. Merle threw the truck in gear and put on some old country CD that they'd thought to pack on their way out of their shitty old house. Daryl rolled down his window and hung his elbow out into the world as the rain fell onto his skin and the wind subtly blew through his hair and his face, cooling him off. It was completely silent except for the old Johnny Cash album playing quietly through the speakers, and Daryl honestly couldn't have been happier.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might add chapter titles if anyone thinks that would be rad. It feels kind of empty without them now.

"How about you shut the hell up!?"

"Make me, fucking inbred piece of shit!"

"You best be shuttin' your mouth 'fore I git back there and shut it for ya!"

"Don't think I'm scared of you!"

"But'chu should be."

The back and forth between Arthur and Merle had been going on for the last hour and a half, and frankly everyone else in the truck was sick of it. Gail looked absolutely frightened by the threats that had been escalating so rapidly because she truly believed that someone was about to be killed, and she knew that it would definitely not be Merle. Her eyes were wide and only kept getting bigger and more scared as the swearing turned into racial slurs directed at her. What did she do? Not a thing. She hadn't even spoken except to try to get Arthur to stop talking. It obviously hadn't worked, but she was trying at least. Unlike Daryl. In the back of her mind she was feeling some resentment towards the younger brother of the two because he was just sitting there and not doing anything. He didn't even look bothered by the things that Merle was saying!

In reality, Daryl was very bothered but had taken on the resigned look that he had mastered for Merle's behaviour when he knew that he couldn't stop it. Unless Merle physically assaulted one of the two or really threatened them, since neither Arthur nor Gail have truly experienced a threat from Merle since they left the apartments, Daryl would sit back and let what happened happen. He wouldn't like it, but he knew better than to cross the path of temperamental psychos. As long as Merle kept his eyes on the damn road, he'd be fine. If not then he wasn't yet above getting out and roughing it in the rain with Merle's motorcycle and going solo. There was only so much pissed off Merle that Daryl could take. Daryl had learned a long time ago that the best option was for him to sit down and shut up and let Merle do Merle. It was better for everyone in the long run if that was the case.

Ten minutes must have passed before Merle started to turn around and start wailing on Arthur with what looked like the sheath of his knife. Everyone was screaming, Daryl had a headache, and Gail looked scared. Merle was completely turned around and looking back at Arthur rather than the road, and it was in that moment that Daryl knew he needed to do something or he would die in a fiery car crash or at the hands of his brother. "Alright, alright, alright!" he shouted, moving towards the driver's seat and slamming his foot hard onto the breaks. The truck skidded to a stop, and the entire group lurched forward at once before falling silent. "All'a y'all just need to shut the **hell** up!" He wasn't in the mood for their yelling or their arguing or nothing. He'd been in the truck with these people for too damn long.

"Look who's got his panties in a twist. What'chu all high and mighty about, Darylina?"

"You're gonna fucking kill us if you don't stop your fightin'."

"I ain't killed us yet!"

"You will."

"This is my goddamn truck and I'll do what I want in it!"

"...Fine." Without saying another damn word, Daryl grabbed the crossbow from by his feet and hopped out of the car.

"Wh-Wh-Wh-Where does he think he's going?" Arthur stammered. Daryl was the only reason Merle hadn't killed him yet and he was just up and leaving. "He can't just leave us!"

Merle shook his head and laughed, a smirk dawning his face. "He's done with your bullshit, man." Looking out the rear view mirror, Merle could see Daryl hopping into the back of the truck and unstrapping the motorcycle. Under normal circumstances, Merle would be pissed off at his little brother grabbing his bike, but he had to admit the kid got balls for leaving the two newbies in his care. Even if he was a pussy for walking away.

The motorcycle was a bitch to lift off of the truck and get it on the ground. Daryl's view and muscles were tense with the strain that came with it as he pulled it down with the help of the straps. He was innovative, he could handle it. The only surprise came when Merle didn't just up and pull away while Daryl was trying to get the bike down. His brother was doing him a solid for once. One for the record books, he thought as he hopped back up into the truck and strapped the tarp back over the back. He didn't need any of their shit to go flying out because Merle would give him a lot more grief than it was worth.

Slapping the side of the truck a few times once he was out, Daryl secured the back of the pickup and hopped onto the bike. The roar of the engine was music to his ears as he started it up and drove up to the driver's side window. "You gonna follow me?" he asked his brother, looking up with squinty eyes. A nod from Merle was all it took before Daryl took off down the highway. He wasn't in the mood. It was one of those days, and he had been cramped up in that truck for too damn long. The rain was still falling, but he couldn't mind the drops on his skin as he sped right through them. Within a matter of minutes his face and hair were wet. Least I'm outta there.

Back in the truck, Merle started the engine and turned up the radio to drown out the bullshit that was spewing from the fruit cake's mouth. He didn't think for a damn minute that he was gonna be putting up with that shit. If he had to, he'd kick his ass out of the truck, both of them. The fact he shot him didn't mean shit. The departure of his brother seemed to sober out the mood in the truck, and the two in the back fell silent and watched as Daryl drove off without them, leaving them at Merle's mercy. They were well aware that he could shoot them and be done with it and Daryl wouldn't even notice until after they'd stopped.

Gail was sitting in the back with her knees tucked into her chest and her chin on her knees. Arthur was pissed off to a whole different degree and was quietly fuming. Now that there was silence, Merle took the opportunity to whistle along with the country song playing through his speakers. He liked that they knew who had the power now. Daryl knew it already so that wasn't a problem, but everyone else was. He saw a walker walking up along the side of the highway and felt like he should take it out, so he rolled down his window and fired his gun off quickly with a laugh. "See ya in hell, undead fucker," he laughed as he looked up to see Daryl looking back with a glare. "What?" he mouthed with his hands open in a gesture of innocence. Daryl rolled his eyes and held up five fingers and then pointed to a sign that said there was a set of camp grounds in five miles. "Looks like we gonna go camping. Let's see how all'a y'all pussies do out in the wild."

He laughed and turned up the radio again to drown out whatever snarky response could have come from the couple in the back and settled in for another five minute ride. It wasn't that hard to ignore them now that they'd quieted down. The music drowned out all possible silence and could be heard blaring out of the truck until they pulled off the highway to take the exit towards the grounds. Their deer had since run out because the pussies in the back seat liked to eat more than they were welcomed to. He and his brother had probably eaten half of what they'd eaten, and considering both Dixons were at least twice the size of Arthur, that went a long way. So his patience was officially tried.

The music was cut short as soon as they were starting to get surrounded by trees. If their visual wasn't that great, Merle wasn't about to risk his brother out there on the bike with extra noise. Although, he was getting a little worried about the noise from the bike being so loud in comparison to the silence of the forest. He was going to trust Daryl's lead on where to go since he could see better than he did. The woods was dark. There wasn't much he could do except turn on his headlights and hope Daryl wasn't leading them wrong. Daryl might not know his head from his ass, but he'd taught his little brother well enough to not fuck this up.

His educating Daryl ended up paying off when they came to a parking lot for the various camp grounds. He was going to keep on going, but Daryl stopped and held up his hand. Parking the bike, Daryl walked back to the truck and knocked on the window. When Merle rolled it down, he just started laughing at how soaking wet Daryl was. "Shut up, bro," the younger Dixon sighed for a moment. "I'm gonna go look around and scout out the place. You wanna come with me or stay here with them?"

Before Merle could answer, Arthur leaned into the front and quickly announced, "I'll go with you, man! I need to get out of here and work the leg anyway."

"Shit, you just wanna get away from Merle."

"Wouldn't you?!"

"'Ey, that's my brother you're talkin' about."

"Well your brother's an asshole."

"Shut the hell up and come on," he sighed, shouldering his crossbow. He would give the kid five seconds to get out of the truck, and then he was leaving on foot without him. _Five... Four... Three... Two... Shit._ Arthur was scrambling out of the car with a bat and a handgun on a holster. Daryl didn't look back and just started walking instead. He could catch up. He had to go scouting, and he had to pick a good camp site for them for the next couple of days so they could rest and get space without killing each other. If Merle didn't kill someone, Daryl would, so they needed their space, and that's what he was going to go find.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is Merle and Gail's half of the split!

Merle and Gail were stuck in the confines of the truck together, and Merle was just as happy about it as she was. He had the window of the truck rolled down with his arm hanging lazily out the window with the vague thought of the meth in his motorcycle. He could always leave the girl in the truck and go get himself a pick-me-up. The last time he'd done the ever so dwindling supply of drugs had been a week now, and he could feel the craving for it creeping back into his mind. His brother had been keeping a close eye on him to make sure he didn't get into any of that hit anymore. It wasn't because Daryl didn't want him to do the drugs. It was because they could use the meth to trade for shit if they ever ran into people. You had to stock up on the necessities, and that included drugs. With a sigh, Merle struck up a cigarette and let that hang from his mouth as he continued to whistle.

"You shouldn't smoke, you know," Gail said from the back seat. She just wanted to break the silence. It got eerie and deafening after a while.

"And why's that?" he asked, turning to look at her and blowing smoke straight in her face. "'Cause I'm gon' git cancer? If somethin's gon' kill me now it isn't gonna be cancer."

"There's plenty of other health effects besides cancer you can g-"

She was cut off when he shoved the cigarette into her mouth to shut her up. The taste was incredibly bitter and she started to cough, but she could tell how so many people picked up the habit. It was kind of placating, but it was still a terrible habit. It wasn't something she wanted to pick up in the zombie apocalypse of all places. If she was going to die one day, she didn't want to be going out with a cigarette in her hand. Even if that did mean she was giving up very opportune badass moments, she rolled her eyes and took the cigarette out of her mouth and leaned into the front seat to stick it right back in his. "If you shouldn't smoke, I shouldn't either."

"Don't gotta get your panties in a twist," he said with a roll of his eyes as he finished off the cigarette and flicked it out the window. He didn't need to be getting a disease from a random pair of tits his brother made him take with them. Then he got to thinking about this girl and her little boyfriend. Why'd they be so stupid as to go making noise that they could hear from a floor away? "The hell you and that little fruitcake boyfriend'a yours doin' anyway? Y'all were careless. N'wonder you got shot at."

"He's not my boyfriend, you know," she replied. Her voice was still soft and patient albeit a little annoyed at his description of Arthur. Gail had always been a very accepting person, but ever since she and Arthur traveled down south together from Pennsylvania to Georgia she'd seen the changes in the acceptance of their fellow human beings. It was like they forgot they were human beings all together; it wasn't very comforting. "He's not interested in me."

That little tidbit of information sparked Merle's attention for the obvious reason. So, the little fruitcake wasn't interested in her... That left the doorway open for him. Not that he wanted to be affiliated in any fashion more than getting frisky in the truck. Yeah... That didn't seem so bad. But the look in his eyes gave him away, and Gail politely excused herself and climbed out of the truck. There was a silence that settled in the truck as Merle was left alone again and ask Gail hopped into the bed to sit and keep watch. Neither of them left their spots except to get out and go stretch their legs until Daryl and Arthur came back as the sun was setting, two hours later.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daryl and Arthur's half of the split!

Daryl and Arthur moved in mostly silence. The woods provided an iron curtain between them and whatever unseen dangers that may possibly be facing them. With the sun still peaking over the tops of the trees, Daryl estimated they had a couple of hours before it began to set. The only time a sound was made outside of Daryl's soft footfalls upon dry leaves and the sound of their breathing was when Arthur ran and tripped over a root, falling to his face and crying out in pain. Daryl sighed. _Goddamn, this kid's pathetic._ He probably shouldn't be thinking that way given how Merle thought about him his entire life, but he couldn't help it. There was something about being stuck with people who were inferior than you and who could get you killed that just made his head hurt.

With another sigh, he walked over and crouched in front of Arthur. "You alright?" he asked.

"Y-Yeah... I think so. Fuck, that hurt."

"Pick up your feet next time," the Dixon said as he stood up and then offered Arthur a hand. Once he was standing up again, Daryl pulled out his crossbow and proceeded back down the faded trail. The ground laid mostly undisturbed, leading him to believe that he and his companion were the first travelers to tread it in a long time. There were the occasional animal tracks off to the side, but there wasn't even any sign of walker activity. Imprints were few and far between as they crept away from the path into the depths of the woods. If they found any animal tracks, Daryl wasn't even sure he'd follow them. They still had plenty of deer to last them, but on the flip side of that there were now four people and not two. On top of that there was no telling how used to rationing the pair were and if they felt like being picky about what they ate The Dixons didn't know those people... they didn't want to either.

"Hey, Daryl, think she'll be okay with Merle?" Arthur asked all of a sudden, breaking the silence that Daryl had comfortably settled into.

The question made Daryl's grip in his crossbow tighten. What the fuck kind of question was that?! His eyes went dark as he turned to Arthur and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. He picked up the kid even though he was a little taller than Daryl and slammed him back against the tree. "What'd you just say?"

"D-D-do you think Gail is gonna be alright with Merle?"

"Don'chu ever say somethin' like that about my brother again, got it? He ain't no rapist."

"You'll have to forgive me if I doubt that."

Daryl removed him from the tree and threw him to the ground. "No, I don't." He walked away. That was the only solution. If he had any brains Arthur would be glad that he didn't kill him. Nobody got to say shit about Merle... He wasn't a rapist. He was an asshole who abused drugs and his brother and society in general, but even he had a moral line that he didn't cross. Daryl might not be treated right by Merle, but Merle was all he had and he would defend him if it was the last thing he would ever do. It was hard for him to go to the extent to say that he loved Merle, but Merle was blood. That counted for more than anything else, especially now that there was no other rule to live by.

He didn't care that Arthur had trouble picking himself back up. He also didn't care to see that the kid had eventually caught up with him ten minutes later. If he'd really wanted to ditch him then he would have, but Daryl thought his threat was enough for now. It just meant something bad would happen if he ever insinuated something like that again. But for now, there was that silence again. The only noises were that of Arthur as he panted and tried to calm his breathing down again. The campgrounds looked normal and relatively undisturbed. He supposed that's what came with being so far off the freeway and not having much as far as life anymore; if he were an animal he'd never go near a campground anyway.

Then he heard a twig snap that didn't come from him or Arthur. He spun around with the crossbow ready. He was scanning everywhere for a threat. He never found one. What he did find, was a small robin. Unfortunately, Arthur wasn't as calm about it as he was. The twig snapped again, louder this time, and Arthur heard it. He grabbed his gun and spun around, firing off a round in absolutely no conceivable direction. The sound of the shot echoed around the

"What the fuck're you doin'!?" Daryl shouted at him.

"A twig snapped!"

"You just told every goddamn walker we're here!"

"How was I supposed to know?"

"You fuckin' look! You got eyes, don't ya?"

Arthur huffed and opened his mouth to say something but was promptly silenced by a death glare from Daryl. He knew that he may have possibly overreacted. There were enough trees around them that the sound could have bounced around the entire wood. It didn't take a genius to realize that they had a shot. There were plenty of places to hide. He didn't trust it completely, but he knew better than to put himself in unnecessary danger. Daryl made sure to keep Arthur silent as he stood at the ready for five minutes; he had to make sure no walkers were in the area. Whatever had snapped the twig had gone away from them as opposed to towards them, and once Daryl determined that, he slowly lowered his weaponry and put them away with a nod.

"C'mon," Daryl said, waving Arthur on with him. The path was starting to run downwards, and Daryl knew that water ran downhill too. There was water around, and Daryl was going to find it. Maybe then Merle would have something nice to say for once in his goddamn life instead of the bullshit he usually spewed in Daryl's general direction. Speaking of his brother, Daryl wondered what he was doing with that girl back in the truck. He didn't think anything bad was happening, but she looked like the type who didn't lie down for nobody and that could cause some problems with Merle. "We'll see where this goes then go back to Merle."

"How do you know which way we're going?" Arthur asked, "How will you even know how to get back?"

"I been in the woods since I could walk," Daryl replied. That was all Arthur really needed to know, and frankly Daryl didn't want to tell him anymore. His past was his own and his alone. Merle was the only one alive who knew anything about Daryl's upbringing. He didn't know anything at all either. He wasn't around for most of it, and when he was he was boozed up or just preparing to run away. While Daryl had never admitted it out loud, he was glad that the zombie apocalypse had come and killed off most of the annoying people in the world, the ones who didn't know how to survive. That meant the people still alive were the ones who knew what they were doing, the ones who were willing to learn, and the lucky ones. He and Merle were the first category; Gail was the second; Arthur was the last. That was how Daryl looked at it. Hopefully for his sake the guy could learn a thing or two.

The grade of the ground had slowly decreased as the two men got lower. Daryl would periodically stop them and hush Arthur when he was breathing too hard and he was trying to hear something. They were getting closer; he could feel it. The trees were thinning out and the ground beneath their feet was getting softer. If that wasn't confirmation that he could start getting a little excited, Daryl didn't know what was. And, within a few minutes, his nervous energy turned into flat out joy as he saw blue and it wasn't sky. Fresh water was a sight for sore eyes, and boy did Daryl have more things sore than just his eyes. He turned and actually smiled at Arthur before he quickened his pace and headed straight towards the water.

He damn near fell to his knees at the sight of it, but he forced himself forward and jogged straight to the edge of the waterline. It looked clear, and it didn't have any dead bodies floating in it from what Daryl could see. Those were the only two things he was worried about. _Some apocalypse this is,_ Daryl thought with a slight smirk as he kicked at the water with his boot. He and Merle might even get to do some fishing if the water had any in it. Now that they'd reached exactly where he'd wanted them to go, he didn't find himself too apprehensive to return. "We'll head back in a minute. Sit down. Your leg'll need it."

Arthur nodded and took a seat right on the dark sandy beach. The other male continued to stand watch while he rested. It was a nice area, one that he thought could become a semi-permanent location if everything was permitting. Life never really worked out for you if your last name was Dixon. Sometimes life decided to give you a break, and when it did that you had to take them when they came to you. This was one of those times. The only factor that had yet to be decided was Merle and his reaction; the zombies could be dealt with accordingly, but Merle couldn't be killed. The walkers and his brother happened to share one key thing in common, and it happened to be the trait Daryl most wished wasn't the case: they were both stubborn beyond all reason and refused to be reasoned with.

"Let's go."

The two men started off back up the incline towards the truck. They didn't want to leave Merle and Gail alone for too long. The walk back was a lot quicker than the walk there too. True to his word, Daryl got them back there without a hitch. There was a lone walker that they'd stumbled across, but Daryl took care of it quickly with his crossbow and got them moving on again. By the time they arrived, the sun had started to go down and it looked like they might not have any choice for sleeping except the truck. Now that it was in sight, Daryl picked up the pace from a jog to a run and went right up to the window of the driver's side. Merle rolled down the window and raised an eyebrow at him.

"Merle, guess what we found."


	11. Chapter 11

Arthur and Daryl had hurried back to the truck with their pants damp up to their knees. The water had talked them into it. When they'd found the other two, they were merely sitting in silence with a lot of obvious tension in the air, one that immediately dissipated when Daryl explained the water situation. The hours that followed were dedicated to maneuvering the vehicles down to the shoreline and setting up camp with an easy get away route. The brothers did all the work. It wasn't a surprise to them, but that didn't mean it wasn't annoying. It was about “dinner time” while they were doing all of the work, so Arthur and Gail weren't much help because they were hungry. They'd apparently been keeping up a regular three course meal schedule in an effort to pretend things were still normal, like they could afford to do that and the world wasn't crumbling around them.

The sun had set a half hour before they finished. Merle found a nice rock to sit on and was stoking the fire pit he set up. It probably wasn't a good idea to have a fire going after so much noise, but Daryl was hungry from all the bullshit that day and wasn't about to eat the deer raw. “You ain't made jerky outta it yet, have you, little brother?” The noise caught Daryl off guard as he prepped the deer for cooking. When the hell would he have had time to get deer jerky? No way Merle had a brain in his head.

“No... no time,” he replied with a voice so soft Merle had to lean over to hear him. “Gonna eat it all before we got a chance.” If it had been just him and Merle, Daryl would have been able to make the deer stretch out for another week, maybe even two, but with the extra dead weight it was hard to keep on their bare minimalist approach. Arthur and Gail weren't going to be around forever... hopefully not for too much longer. For the sake of their supplies, Daryl hoped not for too long. He and Merle were supposed to be together.

Their little camp was divided with the brothers on one side and their “guests” on the other. It was obvious the Dixons were in their element. They were stretched out and relaxed as they cared for the fire and got dinner ready. On the other side there were two people who had probably never been in the wilderness until the apocalypse came and swept away the shitty excuse for civilization the world had. Arthur was shifting around uncomfortably on the ground. He'd get up and go pace before trying to sit back down again. He would try a rock, it would be too uncomfortable, and he would go back to fidgeting. Merle would make comments under his breath and start snickering to himself, as superior as he obviously was.

Gail, however, stayed silent. It was easy to forget she was there. She had a dark purple jacket hugged around herself with the hood pulled up over her face. With her knees tucked against her chest and her chin gently on them, it was easy to forget she was there. She didn't make a sound. She just stared at the fire. If the fire hadn't lit up her face, Daryl might have forgotten there were four people at that fire.

As the silence continued on, it was broken only by the sounds of their eating and Merle's whistling. Daryl knew how the night would end: Merle pulling his usual self and falling asleep right after eating because of the alcohol in his system while he cleaned everything up. For once, he was looking forward to it. If everyone fell asleep it meant he could wash his clothes a little bit. His clothes were all the same color now, the same shade of dirt. No amount of cleaning would ever be able to turn the fabric back to normal; believe it or not, his tank top used to be white.

 

Sure enough, Daryl was right. He stopped paying attention to Merle for two goddamn seconds and he fell asleep with a beer in his hand. With a soft sigh, Daryl got up and grabbed everyone's dishes and waled down to the water. He could clean up himself too while he was at it. Not that he would d any real cleaning. Being covered in dirt was how he liked it now. It made him a lot harder to detect. Plus it was hard to get even more dirty when you reached the point where all of your clothes were the same shade of dirt. He pulled his shirt off and tried to wash it so it was less stiff and stuck to him less. The only soap the Dixons had was a small bar that was so scratchy it did more harm than good. It was good on the dishes (Daryl had been known to use whatever objects were around him as weapons in extreme circumstances) and he was hoping it would yield the same result on the shirt. He just wanted more room to breathe.

When the water splashed behind him, his hand flew to the knife at his hip and he spun around to see Gail about knee deep; she was even shorter than him, so it was already more difficult. “Did you want any help cleaning up? I helped make the mess...” Her voice was quiet too, just like his. “Your brother shouldn't leave you to clean it all up. You made it.” She reached out her hands to take some of it off his hands and he just stared at her. What did she gave to gain by helping him? Merle never helped him unless there was something in it for him.

Hesitantly, he passed her the dishes and the bar of soap so he could focus on working on his shirt. He didn't think anything of having Gail there with him, but he did turn away so she couldn't really see him. It was an unsure movement, one that could have either been from modesty or embarrassment, but it was enough to get Gail's attention. “I don't think you can get the shirt back to its original color ever again.” She said it with a smile, but he scowled at her until he saw that she wasn't laughing at him. Why wasn't she laughing at him? Everyone did...

He shook his head and replied, “Don't need it any color. Just somethin' to wear.” The Dixons each had one other shirt in case a hole was ripped into theirs or they needed to rip it apart for bandages. All they took from bodies were their shoelaces; good laces were more rare than good food these days. 

“You don't get cold?” 

The voice interrupted his reverie and Daryl had to furrow his brow in confusion. He hadn't thought about it. Getting cold wasn't a luxury he could afford anymore, and if he got cold then Merle would laugh at him and call him all kinds of shit. Gail had genuinely asked him something about his well being. How does one respond to being asked a question like that? “Don't know anymore,” he replied after a moment. “Nothin' I can do about it.”

“Do you want a jacket? Arthur has a couple...”

“Don't need one. Got used to it.”

“Just 'getting used to' things isn't a good way to live, Daryl.”

She finished what she was doing and started to wade back to the shore. The fire was still going even though their respective charges had long since fallen asleep. It left him with a few things to think about. Why did she care? And why couldn't he get used to things? It was better than complaining about them all the goddamn time. There was a reason he and Merle did so well in the apocalypse. But before he could be touched with concern, Daryl's scowl returned on his face. Not many people would jump to anger, but Daryl was not most people, and who was she to tell him how to live his life? It was his goddamn life, the one he was stuck with. If he wanted to get used to it, that was his right.

And why the fuck did she think he was too much of a pussy to stand the cold without anything? He had a thin blanket. He didn't need her pity. He was doing just fine. He huffed and threw his shirt onto a rock after ringing it out. He would sleep in the wet pants and wouldn't be bothered by it, even if it did leave him chilled. He wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of being right just so she could have a smug look on her face like Merle and everyone else.

Daryl plopped down by the fire and used one of their backpacks under his head as a pillow. His crossbow was right within his reach and the scowl still on his face. All he did was give Gail a brief glare before rolling over away from the fire and trying to fall asleep.

 

Gail didn't know what she did wrong and pulled her knees to her chest to act as her comfort and her pillow. She would be sleeping poorly that night. She wanted to trust them, but she knew that damaged people weren't the most reliable... one shouldn't trust another person not to break them when they've broken themselves.


	12. Chapter 12

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while! I started college and have been trying to get my bearings!

Also I met Michael Rooker on Friday so I'm super ready to continue when I have time!

I'll have a new chapter within a week!


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